“I’ve got such big dogs that I knew they had to be behaved,” said trainer Elena Caudle seen with her 2-year-old Tosa-Inu Enishi.

Training a dog to go out in public requires a little more effort than teaching “sit” or “roll over,” and for those looking to get their new puppy started on the right track to polite society, Happy Tails Groom & Board’s Elena Caudle may be the person to see. 

The trainer said she works with dogs for behavior-based training, or making sure they are ready to get out and interact with people and other dogs without behaving badly. 

“My focus is on good manners, public manners,” she said. “I want a dog that can be seen anywhere in public, and go anywhere in public, and people don’t go ‘Oh man, here comes that dog again.’”

She said that focus on behavior training first became important when Caudle got her first Tosa-Inu, which is a breed that can grow to nearly two feet tall and weigh up to 200 pounds. With a dog that could get so large, she said she knew that she would have to work to get them ready to get out and meet people without being too rowdy.

“I’ve got such big dogs that I knew they had to be behaved,” she said. “So that was a win-win for that.”

After getting into the training she quickly fell in love with the process. 

“I absolutely love watching the learning that happens,” Caudle said. “They’re like a blank slate.”

Once she began training her own dogs, Caudle said she began getting calls from others who wanted her to try her hand at teaching their own dog some better manners. She said she did not set out to learn any specific techniques or methods that would apply to all dogs, but she does work with a group of other trainers who share their experiences and best methods for certain training areas. 

“You’re having trouble with something and you see something that works for somebody else, so you try it,” she said. “And that’s kind of what all dog training is about is what works for you best, you’ve just got to communicate it to the dog.”

After getting her feet under her in training her own dogs, people began reaching out to her for help with their own pets because there was no one in the area at the time who offered it. There were also other groomers and veterinarians in the area who were having to deal with dogs that were not trained, and Caudle said she received recommendations from them as well. 

After training dogs in another location for the past several years, she joined Happy Tails in February 2021 to become a full-time trainer there.

Adding training to the list of services that Happy Tails Groom & Board offers is something that has been in the works for a long time, and bringing Caudle onto the staff has allowed for it to finally happen, said Happy Tails owner Page Dowdy.

She said that for the 10 years that Happy Tails has been open, the biggest request that she received from customers was for training services, and when the business moved to its current location a few years ago, she began looking for the right trainer who could come in and offer the kind of training that dogs needed. 

“I want everything here to be perfect, and you can’t just bring in anybody to do it,” Dowdy said. “So we waited three years for the right person.”

Since Caudle came on at Happy Tails, the training services have continued to grow, and the business has converted a storage building into a training area that has a space for one-on-one training with dogs and a meeting room for dog owners to discuss what kind of training they are looking for. 

“I’m so excited about it, I can’t hardly stand it,” Caudle said. 

Dowdy said Happy Tails is also working to incorporate enrichment activities for dogs that are spending the day there for its daycare service, and Caudle will be in charge of many of those activities. 

Classes start next week, but spots are filling up fast. To find more information about training services visit the Happy Tails Groom & Board Facebook and Instagram pages.